This past weekend, a small wreck

Friday evening I came home and started downloading my Danzig mp3s. It started pouring down rain outside. I mean it was coming down in sheets. Around 7:30, we left to have dinner with Carl and Mindi. After dinner, El and I went to Bum’s Sports Bar for a couple beers. There was a young band from Dallas playing that night, so the joint was packed with high school kids with big “M”s (for minor) written on their hands with magic marker. El and I thought that Philip would have had a nice time there… We had a good time anyway. We didn’t stay very long.

We got home a little before midnight and El talked me into going into our apartment complex’s communal hot tub. Having rained as much as it did ealier that evening, there wasn’t much heat to the hot tub. We stayed in the small, warm pool of other people’s germs long enough to get pruney, then headed home to get some sleep.

I woke up relatively early on Saturday to go on a much needed motorcycle ride. My plan was to get somewhat lost and eventually find myself in Killeen where I would stop at the local motorcycle shop. I got lost alright, and I wound up nowhere near Killeen. I’m used to getting lost in the hill country near Austin, where you can drive a good ways and you’ll eventually come upon a really nice neighborhood, a river, a golf course or a lake. Well, on this Saturday, I found myself coming upon blacktop roads, scattered mobil home communities, baron land occupied by leaf-eating goats and more blacktop roads. I tried to head towards what I thought was south by way of a secluded road. While still hoping to make my way to Killeen, I guess I had travelled far enough east to where I was greeted by an entrance to Ft. Hood. The posted sign deterred me from taking that route.

So, I turned around and took the same boring way back home. Since I had already experienced this route, I crossed my left leg over my gas tank and started singing to myself. I rode almost 60 miles. A boring ride, but a nice and therapeutic one nonetheless.

I came home to find that the guy in the mirror had a pretty nice shade of red on his face… I hadn’t expected to be out that long – guess I should have slapped on some sunscreen.

El and I spent most of the day geeking out in front of our respective computers, mostly to download mp3s. El decided that she wanted pizza for dinner, so we went to HEB and bought the ingredients I needed for a veggy pizza. Turned out pretty good – onion, tomato, bell pepper, garlic – jalepenos and green olives on my side. Then we watched a movie and went to bed.

Sunday was a lazy day – watered the plants, I cooked some pork chops and potatoes, downloaded more mp3s, watched another movie.

So that was our weekend. Once again, Monday reared its ugly head too soon.

I saw a wreck on my way into work this morning. Some moron driving a blue, newer model Suburban flagrantly ran a red light at the intersection of Loop 363 and S. 31st. An old white pickup truck was this first off the line from the middle lane as the light turned green. He apparently couldn’t see the Suburban as there was another pickup truck to his left, blocking the view. I was two cars behind this truck. He pinged the passenger side quarter panel on the Suburban and knocked it halfway into the other lane.

I immediately laughed after I could determine that nobody was hurt. The light stayed green while everyone paused in the standard “I just witnessed a wreck” dumbfounded state. Traffic finally started to pass through the light. I went ahead and continued on my route to work. As I was passing the white truck that was the ‘victim’, an old man in tight Wranglers and a cowboy hat got out of his truck, looked towards the Suburban and exclaimed: “Bashturd” [image Will Farrell’s voice impression of George W. Bush]. One more good thing about riding a motorcycle – you can see, smell and hear everything. I didn’t look back, but I’m sure the old man’s good ol’ pickup truck didn’t even receive a battle scar. The Suburban – I’m sure that’ll cost a pretty penny.

More words of wisdom…

1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just leave me the hell alone.

2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tire.

3. It’s always darkest before dawn. So if you’re going to steal your neighbor’s newspaper, that’s the time to do it.

4. Sex is like air. It’s not important unless you aren’t getting any.

5. Don’t be irreplaceable. If you can’t be replaced, you can’t be promoted.

6. No one is listening until you fart.

7. Always remember you’re unique. Just like everyone else.

8. Never test the depth of the water with both feet.

9. If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

10. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes.

11. If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.

12. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

13. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

14. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

15. Some days you are the bug; some days you are the windshield.

16. Don’t worry; it only seems kinky the first time.

17. Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

18. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

19. A closed mouth gathers no foot.

20. Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

21. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works.

22. Generally speaking, you aren’t learning much when your lips are moving.

23. Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

24. Never miss a good chance to shut up.

25. We are born naked, wet, and hungry, and get slapped on our ass … then things get worse.

26. The most wasted day of all is one in which we have not laughed.

Inspiration from Steve

Our email server is down – AGAIN. Hopefully this should all be over with by the end of the week…. If not, I’m moving Janicek.com. I just wrote Cedant again and told them that I want an exact date and time in which I can expect my email to be back up. I’ve also requested a reimbursement for this downtime.

In other news, David just emailed me and told me he wasn’t coming into work today because someone drove into his house. See what Monday will do to you? I think we should just do away with Mondays all together. What do you think?… Three day weekends forever!

I was checking out John’s site today… He mentions how he is blessed because he has Christine. Now, my wife is great and all, but I really signed that nuptial contract so I could have Steve and Joanne.

I really feel that I’m blessed to have such great in-laws. I’d rather not even think of them as in-laws but more as my other parents. They’re always sincere, warm, loving and most importantly, inspiring. Steve emailed me today to say: “Judge each day, not by the harvest, but by the seeds you plant.” Hmmm… Yeah, I think I’ll do that. Thanks Steve!

Donnie Darko, Mulholland Drive, Cooking challenge, Chas, Mardi Gras

We just watched Donnie Darko again… Yeah, I’m still going to have to watch it a few more times. We watched Mulholland Drive last night… I’ll have to watch that a couple more times as well. When it comes to movie comprehension, I’m one Fruit Loop shy of a full bowl.

In other news, Chas emailed me today. He still seems to be curious as to what we ate at the Mardi Gras Seafood Cafe. I know what we ordered, I’m just not sure if I got the ingredients right. Chas fessed up and told me that he is a cook at Mardi Gras and wrote that what I described in my review “doesn’t add up”. He said that they would love for me to come back, introduce myself and try their food again.

Power of P2P

Over the weekend I downloaded seven, yes seven, Danzig albums and one Nickelback album. I figure I saved over $150 in buying CD’s. Boy, did Shawn Fanning ever create a monster. I began using KaZaA a few months ago after I found out it had the same interface as Morpheus, and after Morpheus stopped working for me. I tried Audio Galaxy (I refuse to provide a link for them) for a while, but gave that client up after my desktop became inundated with pop up ads.

Luckily Mom offered me a 1gb hard drive… I’m running out of room. I have close to 1000 mp3s on my hard drive now. I don’t want to think about how many I’ve burned onto CDs as well. You should hear my friend Victor – he’s always swapping out 20 gig hard drives to make more room for his pirated music. The way I see it, if I can avoid paying out the wazoo for a CD, I’ll be more likely to go to a concert.

Easter

Have a good weekend – I know I will…

… they (Australia) celebrate Easter the exact same way we do: commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus by telling our children a giant bunny rabbit left chocolate eggs in the night. Now, I wonder why we’re f***** up as a race. Anybody got any idea? You know, I’ve read the Bible. I can’t find the word bunny or chocolate anywhere in the f***ing book. Where do they come up with this s***? Why not goldfish left Lincoln logs in your sock drawer? As long as you’re making s*** up – you know – go hog-wild. At least the goldfish with a Lincoln log on its back going across your carpet has some miraculous connotations: “Mum, today I found a Lincoln log in me sock drawer.”
That’s the story of Jesus…

– Bill Hicks

Compared to McDonalds????

Anonymous writes “I read your Restaurant reviews….what a joke!You must like McDonalds because you compare them with everyone… seem to know alot about McDonalds.And your so-called culinary experience is laughable.But far from funny.I saw you give rave reviews for some pretty bad food here in Temple… and then I saw you give some horrible reviews for the best in Temple.And your arrogance is almost vulgar.Where did you learn that from?McDonalds?I’ll bet you like the Roach Coach that goes from one work place to another too.

Note:

Chas,

Judging from your entries on my website, I take it you have some personal interest in the Mardi Gras Seafood Cafe aside from just being familiar with the menu?

I don’t remember the exact date on which we ate there, but it was one Friday evening this past May. I would not lie about having eaten at a restaurant, my wife and I have both eaten there. I’m sorry if I didn’t get the entree names exact, but it sounds like you would be able to tell what we ate.

And you’re right, I do mention McDonald’s twice in my total of 4 restaurant reviews. I guess I’ll have to go back and change one of them. For the record, I honestly can’t remember the last time I ate at a McDonald’s establishment – we don’t frequent fast food chains. Having said that, I hope you can appreciate the fact that we have somewhat higher standards than the super-sized combo meal.

Like I say on the default page for the review section of my site, I’m not a food critic nor a chef. I enjoy cooking and I enjoy eating in restaurants with my wife. I particularly enjoy eating at ‘Mom & Pop’ places like Mardi Gras. We just happened to have had a bad experience on this particular occassion. It’s comments like yours that help me realize that I should perhaps be more objective and more observative when I review a restaurant (or anything, for that matter).

If you do have a personal interest in this restaurant, how would you feel about arranging a time when my wife and I could come back to Mardi Gras Seafood Cafe and try the food again, as well as introduce ourselves? Like I said in my review, I would like to try the food there again seeing how this restaurant came highly recommended by friends and coworkers. I would be more than happy to ammend my review if the food warranted it. I’ve noticed that my review for “Mardi Gras Seafood Cafe” comes up at the #4 spot on Google.com. I would welcome the opportunity to change that into a good review and provide positive advertising for Mardi Gras.

Sincerely,

Josh Janicek

On Thu, 11 Jul 2002 23:26:33 EDT
CRETCC@aol.com wrote:
> I would like to ask you when you visited Mardi Gras
> Seafood Cafe. I ask that
> you answer honestly, if you even answer at all. I am
> very familiar with the
> menu and what you seem to have said in your review,
> doesnt add up. I would
> like a little insight if you dont mind.
>
> Thank you for your time.
>
> Chas

This is from Mindi’s signature file on Janicek.com: Czech please!

This is from Mindi’s signature file on Janicek.com:

“If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be meetings.”

Meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings meetings. Working for a big company involves a lot of meetings. I’m not complaining or saying anything negative about where I work, I’m just making an observation. ;) But I don’t think I’ve ever been to as many meetings in my entire life. I remember back in high school, I was on every committee and in every club that I could join… I was extracurricular, extra busy boy and we didn’t have that many meetings. I think I was even in the Spanish Club, and I didn’t even take Spanish.

Speaking of foreign languages… ever see those bumper stickers that say “Jak Se Mas?” I always thought it was Spanish. Nope, it’s Czech. Means: “How are you?” I figure I’m going to start learning the basics in the Czech language seeing how I carry a Czech name.

Oh yeah – and thank you all for your concerns regarding my physical health. I’m feeling much better now. I don’t know what was going on with me. See – told you, if I just waited a day or so, I wouldn’t have to go to the doctor. Doctors are for wimps (unless, of course, you have Fibromyalgia) .

El just got back from her weekly meeting. She lost more weight. She’s lost 20 lbs total! Congrats babe, I’m proud of you!

Morris the Mechanic

Morris the Mechanic
Posted on Wednesday, July 10 by josh
[ Edit | Delete ]

Human Nature I thought this little story/joke that my Mom sent was pretty funny – seeing how I work for a hospital.

Also, when I was 18, I went to the National Youth Leadership Forum on Medicine in Washington D.C. This is when I was thinking about going into medicine.

While there, we went to all of the major hospitals in the area: Fairfax, Johns Hopkins, The Virginia Heart Center (and more, I just don’t remember the names of all of them). I think it was at the latter where we got to watch a live triple bipass from the observation booth. I’m glad I didn’t have any Junior Mints.

Anyway – here it is:

Morris the loudmouth mechanic was removing the cylinder heads from the motor of a car when he spotted the famous heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey, who was standing off to the side, waiting for the service manager to come take a look at his Mercedes.

Morris shouted across the garage, “Hey DeBakey! Is dat you? Come on ova’ here a minute.”

The famous surgeon, a bit surprised, walked over to where Morris the mechanic was working on the car. Morris straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked argumentatively, “So Mr. Fancy Doctor, look at dis here work. I also open hearts, take valves out, grind ’em, put in new parts, and when I finish dis baby will purr like a kitten. So how come you get da big bucks, when you an’ me is doing basically da same work?”

Dr. DeBakey leaned over and whispered to Morris the loudmouth mechanic:

“Try doing it with the engine running.”

Teamsite training

Today blew by – even though I’ve been a little under the weather. David and I finished up our Interwoven Teamsite training today. Teamsite is our content management system that we’re using in the redevelopment of Scott & White’s new database driven website (look for it in September).

I ran a stop sign right in front of a cop today… Don’t know how I pulled that one off – guess it was luck. I didn’t actually run the stop sign, I just did a Hollywood stop. I guess I’ll have to be a little more careful now. I’m getting so used to the streets around here now that I’m starting to not pay as much attention.

Just found out that I lost a nice chunk of change in a certain stock investment. I decided to bite the bullet and check the rest of my portfolio – I almost cried. Luckily we’re still young so we can endure a recession or two – but it’s still scary. We haven’t received a statement from El’s broker regarding her mutual funds. I figure it’s probably not even worth the cost of printing.

Getting sick

The leprosy is starting to set in and take hold of my immune system…

I’ve been fighting some sort of ailment for 5 days now. I don’t know what it is, but my throat won’t decide if it wants to be sore or not. I’m lightheaded, I have a headache, I’m weak, I can barely keep my eyes open, my breathing is short, my muscles hurt, I’m queasy and I get this sporadic pattern of red bumps on my back and chest. Sounds like I should go to the doctor, eh? I’ll see how I feel tomorrow.

Elise got home from her extended weekend yesterday. We didn’t do anything fancy for her homecoming – we just sat on the couch and watched Austin Powers 2 then we both started falling asleep while watching National Lampoon’s Vacation, so we went to bed.

Funny friend

I was cleaning out some old emails recently. I came across this one again that still cracks me up. If you know Marshall, then you’ll understand.

Hope you guys are doing well, and that moving Elise has gone smoothly. As for me, there’s nothing new going on. Just sitting by the pool or Barton Springs every day, spouting off to anyone who’ll listen about how I used to work for a dot com that could’ve gotten somewhere had the stars been properly aligned. At which point they invariably walk away, leaving me to mutter into my cheap domestic canned beer all by my lonesome.

In short, it’s a great life. Hope you’re enjoying yours.

Just seems so true – that whole mental image.

4th of July Celebration

I went to Austin late yesterday afternoon to spend the 4th with Tommy and Jeremy. I went to Tommy’s new apartment on Parmer near MoPac – he’s got a pretty nice little pad. There is quite a difference between north and south Austin. El and I decided long ago (prior to deciding to move to Temple) that if we were going to stay in Austin, we would move north.

Anyway, around 7 p.m. Tommy, Jeremy and I hopped into Tommy’s car and headed to Zilker Park. Much to our surprise, parking was simple. We came to find out later that we weren’t where all the ‘action’ was. That was fine with us. We found a nice, uncrowded spot and hung out to watch the fireworks. It was nothing fancy. I was really thinking there was going to be a big to-do this year in Austin. I was pretty disappointed. The show was still cool and all, I think I just had high expectations.

Then we drove to the outskirts of Austin and loaded up with some bottle rockets (shhhh). We drove out to the 360 bridge and, eh, well…. played checkers – yeah, that’s the ticket. There were a lot of other people out there playing checkers as well. So many people in fact that the cops came and made us all go home. Nobody got into any trouble, they just asked us to leave, so we did.

That was the extent of my 4th of July celebration. I took today off, so I’m sitting around being lazy. I just watched French Kiss, Ewwww – I was vegging out on the couch and getting all sappy – had to come check my email etc. so I wouldn’t start listening to El’s CDs and watching Trading Spaces. Guess I should go see what’s on Speedvision now!

Don’t know what the rest of the weekend will hold, better go dig out my spontaneity hat.